That dazed helplessness brought no mercy. Neither that, nor the fact that the man was quite a bit smaller than Mike. This was not a fight governed by Marquis of Queensbury rules. Mike bounced forward on his toes and slammed another right hand, low into the man's abdomen below the cuirass. Another. If there'd been a referee, Mike would have been disqualified by either punch. His next blow was a left hook, which shattered the man's jaw and lifted him right off his feet. Mike was a very strong man, and-unlike most-he knew how to fight. The blows were like sledgehammers. Mike started to slam another right into the thug's face but managed to stop the punch.
Christ, Stearns-enough! He's done.
He forced himself to step back, as if being driven off by an invisible referee. The trained reaction brought some clarity to his thoughts. Mike was shocked to realize how much fear and rage had taken possession of him. He felt like a vial of pure adrenaline.
His opponent collapsed to the floor in a heap. Mike dropped his arms and let his fists open. His hands hurt. He'd forgotten how much punishment bare-knuckle fighting inflicted on the victor as well as the vanguished.
He was starting to tremble now, from delayed reaction to the entire fight. The gunplay was affecting him more than anything else. For all that he'd been something of a roughneck in his youth, Mike had never killed anyone before.
A hand fell on his shoulder, turning him around. He saw Dr. Nichols' concerned face. "Are you all right?"
Mike nodded. He even managed a wan little smile, and held up his hands. Three of the knuckles were split and bleeding. "Far as I know, Doc, this is all that's wrong with me."
Nichols took the hands and examined them, kneading the joints. "Don't think anything's broken," he muttered. The doctor cast a quick glance at the unconscious thug on the dirt floor of the farmhouse. "But as hard as you punch, young fellow, I'd really suggest you use gloves from now on. That bastard looks like somebody took an ax handle to him."
For a moment, Mike felt a little light-headed. He could sense other miners ranging through the farmhouse, looking for more enemies. But there weren't any. The blood rushing through his ears blurred the words they were speaking, but Mike could sense from the tone that all danger was past.
He took a deep, almost shuddering breath. Then, with a quick shake of the head, he cleared away the sensation of dizziness. Nichols released his hands.
"Thanks, Doc," he said softly.
Nichols' face broke into a sudden smile. "Please-call me James! I believe we've been properly introduced."
The doctor turned away. "And now I've got some badly injured people to deal with. I think I've tattered the Hippocratic Oath enough for one day." In a mutter: "Christ, Nichols. 'First, do no harm.' "
Guiltily, Mike remembered Harry Lefferts. And the farmer and the woman he assumed was his wife. He started after Nichols, ready to lend assistance. Then stopped and turned, looking for Frank.
Jackson was standing by a large fireplace, slowly examining the interior of the room. Most of the farmhouse seemed to consist of a single chamber, although Mike could see a slender staircase-more like a ladder-leading to the upper story. Very little light filtered into the farmhouse, since the few windows were tiny. But Mike could see that the place was a complete shambles. The thugs had obviously been looting, along with their other crimes. Now that he'd seen how thoroughly the farmhouse had been ransacked, Mike realized that the farmer had been tortured in order to reveal whatever hidden treasures he might possess.
Not much, from the looks of this place. For all its size and painstaking construction, the house was poorer-looking than any farm Mike had ever seen. There wasn't even any interior lighting. Nor plumbing, from what he could tell. No glass in the windows. Even the floor was simply packed earth.
Frank's eyes met him. "I'll see to this, Mike. Tony's already checking upstairs. You go help the doctor."
Outside, Mike found Nichols working on the farmer. The doctor, having apparently gone through all the bandages in the first-aid kit, had removed his suit jacket and was tearing his shirt into strips. He was now bare from the waist up. For all that Nichols was in late middle age, there was almost no fat on his wiry musculature. The hard black flesh, covered with a thin film of sweat, gleamed in the sunlight.
Mike looked around. Darryl was tending to Harry Lefferts. Lefferts also had his shirt off, and was goggling at the wound in his side. It was quite spectacular-his entire thigh and hip were soaked with blood, along with his ribs-but Mike didn't think it was really serious. The wound was already bound with a bandage roll. The bandage was bloodstained, but Mike thought the bleeding had stopped.
"It's just a flesh wound," he heard Nichols say. Mike turned. The doctor had cocked his head toward him. "I treated Harry first thing. He'll have a truly amazing scar to boast to his grandkids about, but the bullet just traveled along one rib before passing out. No internal bleeding, so far as I can tell."
Nichols' head jerked toward the woman. She had rolled over onto her side, her hands covering her face. Her knees were drawn up to her chest, in fetal position. She was sobbing quietly and steadily. Her shabby dress had been pulled back down over her legs and two jackets were covering her further. The miners who had contributed those jackets-Don Richards and Larry Masaniello-were squatting nearby. Their expressions were confused and distressed. Beyond what they'd done, they obviously had no idea what other help they could give her.
"She'll be all right," murmured Nichols. His face tightened. "As much as any gang-rape victim, anyway." He looked back down at the farmer. "But this guy might not make it. There are no major arteries severed, but he's lost an enormous amount of blood."
Mike squatted by the doctor. "How can I help, James?" He saw that Nichols had bound up all of the farmer's wounds. But blood was already soaking through the cloth. The doctor was tearing more strips from his ruined shirt, ready to add new bandages.
"Give me your tuxedo jacket, for starters. See if there are any blankets inside. Anything to keep him warm. He's in shock."
Mike took off his jacket and handed it to the doctor, who spread it over the farmer. Then Nichols blew out his cheeks. "Get me an ambulance, so we can take this poor guy to a hospital. Short of that, I've done all I can here without medical supplies and facilities."
The doctor raised his head and slowly studied the surrounding area. "But somehow I've got a bad feeling that ambulances and hospitals are going to be hard to come by."
His eyes met Mike's. "Where the hell are we, anyway?" He managed a smile. "Please don't tell me this is what West Virginia's really like. My daughter's been pushing me to move my practice here." Again, his eyes ranged about. "Not even that movie Deliverance was this crazy. And that was somewhere in the backwoods, if I remember right. We're only an hour and a half from Pittsburgh."
Mike copied the doctor's examination of the surrounding area. Softly: "I don't think we're in West Virginia anymore, Toto." Nichols chuckled. "Nothing's right, James-not the landscape, not the trees, not the people, not-" He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing to the farmhouse which loomed behind them. "There's nothing like this in West Virginia, I'll tell you that. For all the poverty of this place, the farmhouse itself is no rickety shack. Anything that big and well-built and old would have been declared a historical monument fifty years ago."
He leaned over and seized one of the thugs' guns, still leaning against the farmhouse. After a quick scrutiny, he held it out for Nichols.
"You ever seen anything like this?" The doctor shook his head. "Neither have I," mused Mike. "Ken Hobbs says it's a matchlock. He'd know, too. He's made a hobby of antique weapons his whole life. They haven't made guns like this in-oh, must be two hundred years. At least. Even by the time of the American Revolution, everybody was using flintlocks."